The San Francisco Furry Film Festival
by Patch O'Furr
… only exists in my imagination. BOO…
BUT WAIT. This isn’t so far-fetched. Many festivals thrive on weirdly specific subjects. I submit:
The Internet Cat Video Festival, the International Moustache Film Festival, and 9 more of “the world’s weirdest.”
The idea perks up my ears. Now, I say with love, many furries will watch ANYTHING with furries in it… no matter how bad. There’s no harm in that! I love me some bad low budget movies. (By reputation, we could name Alpha and Omega.) Lovingly compiled programming dedicated to furries seems likely to attract a core audience. And for curiosity and weirdness sake, probably nerdy movie lovers too.
Start with fantasy programming. Obviously, screening rights to many fan favorites aren’t even in the same world as us. Disney would sooner let random furries screen the X-rated Mickey Mouse cartoon (that I just totally made up), before letting them charge admission to the Lion King. But after making a fantasy list, actual choices would be left for a practical, lets-do-this film festival, with deliciously one-of-a-kind flavor.
Imaginary programs (AND WHAT CAN YOU ADD?)
Indie/art house features:
Finsterworld
The Animal Project
Fan-made fiction:
Bitter Lake
Shorts and skits
The dreaded MEDIA and us:
CSI’s “Fur and Loathing”
Reality TV: Dr. Phil, TLC’s My Strange Addiction, and that hated MTV Sex2K episode.
News clips and con coverage.
Documentary:
Many fan-made shorts, and a few long subjects.
Music videos and dance:
Fan-made originals and cover songs.
Choreographed dance videos from cons, with live costumers on stage!
Faux-furry mainstream videos featuring fursuiters or mascot costumes.
Animation:
Fan-made shorts.
Classic shorts and TV episodes.
Anime.
TV and internet meme mashup:
Furry Force, Ylvis, American Dad, and much more…
What else… Bronies?
NO REALLY – SEND ME SUGGESTIONS FOR PROGRAMMING!
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Afterthoughts: Where better to have such a thing, than the San Francisco Bay area? It has so many furries, love for weirdness and subculture, and a base of indie venues. I’d do it, with help.
For a future post: I have a long draft about why a Furry festival (not anchored by a hotel) may offer advantages that haven’t yet been tried with cons.
Here’s excellent research for anyone who’d start a film fest:
The Truths Behind Film Festivals – The Economics of Film Festivals – What Festival Directors Really Think.
This post is inspired by my just-posted review of Finsterworld – and the San Francisco Underground Short Film Fest, which has screened furry stuff. I loved fursuiting on their stage.
Fursuit TV programming
Fursuits through the ages panel (from the shamans to modern cons)
Oh yeah, they do have fursuit and puppet public-access TV stuff… like the Funday Pawpet Show… thanks for the idea! 🙂
I would suggest the 2004 Van Helsing movie. It’s a bit of a stretch, and super dumb, but come on: Hugh Jackman werewolf. Sexy sexy Hugh Jackman werewolf…
Good idea- a whole Werewolf movie program! There’s a bunch of amazing choices…
Hmm… werewolves happen to be a topic of particular interest to me; let’s see if I can’t come up with a fantasy werewolf movie playlist:
1. Wolf Blood (1925): Notable for being probably the earliest surviving werewolf movie; according to Wikipedia there’s an earlier one from 1913 about a Navajo witch who returns from the dead to kill people as a wolf, but all known copies of that were apparently lost in a studio fire in 1924.
2. The Wolf Man (1941): Not really a favorite of mine, but it pretty much defined the werewolf sub-genre in Hollywood, so I’d feel remiss not including it.
(There are probably werewolf movies worth seeing from the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s, but I haven’t actually seen any of them myself…)
3.The Howling (1981): Definitely a classic; the second one is almost worth watching just for the awesome duo of Christopher Lee and Reb Brown (notable for starring in at least one film featured on MST3K).
4. An American Werewolf in London (1981): Another classic, with one of the best werewolf transformation sequences ever put to film. It’s weird that he doesn’t have a tail, though.
5. Silver Bullet (1985): I enjoyed the Sephen King novella it’s based on but I haven’t actually seen the film. That said, I’ve heard a fair amount about it and it sounds like a camp classic.
6. Teen Wolf (1985): Probably not as good as nostalgia would make you believe, but come on: Michael J. Fox werewolf! 😛
7. Ginger Snaps (2000): Another classic.
8. Dog Soldiers (2002): Not very well known, but quite good (especially for a movie that premiered on the Sci Fi channel :P)
9. Van Helsing (2004): Sexiest werewolf ever filmed, I swear. Incidentally, I’m deliberately skipping Underwold – of the two really dumb action movies with werewolves that came out between 2003 and 2004, I find this one far more enjoyable.
10. Cursed (2005): Not a good movie by any stretch of the imagination, but it has a few good scenes and a lot of hilarious ones.
11. Wolf Children (2012): I haven’t actually seen it, but this Japanese animated film is apparently really good.
I’d like to see a section of programming devoted to furry characters in television advertising. There are so many commercials with nicely done anthro critters; the Kia Hamsters, the Orkin vermin, the Coca Cola bears, etc.
And what ever happened to the La-Z-Boy raccoons?
Yet another fantastic idea. There’s so much of that stuff. Thanks, this is why I posted this! 🙂 And I’m actually doing deeper investigation to make it happen for real.